Key midfielder Liam Kelly has given a hugely encouraging progress report on his Coventry City comeback.
The Sky Blues skipper has been out of action since a freak collision with the foot of a goalpost at Stoke City at the back end of last season – the 31-year-old sliding in to clear a threatening ball to the box to help City to a vital 3-2 scoreline that virtually secured the team’s Championship status with three games to spare.
Suffering knee ligament damage, the influential captain spent three months in a leg brace before working back to near full fitness.
That rehab process went up a notch last week when he joined back in with the squad for his first full training session, with the experienced player now having half an eye on Saturday’s CBS Arena clash with Middlebrough.
“I have been back in full training since Thursday, so I had my third session today (Monday) with all the boys and I feel good and I feel fit,” Kelly told CoventryLive.
“I have got no problems with pain or anything and it’s just a case of trying to build up my training fitness and match fitness now over the next few weeks.
“It’s difficult because we don’t know if there are any 23s games so it might just be a case of keeping myself ready for when an opportunity comes or when the team needs me.”
Matty Godden made his recent return to the first team straight from the bench, going on to grab the headlines with a spectacular late winner against Reading.
“I am naturally quite fit anyway and I work hard to keep myself fit for whenever an opportunity comes,” said Kelly.
“As we saw with Matty, he didn’t really get to play any 23s games and then he went on and scored the match winning goal, so it could be the case of something similar for me.
“It would certainly be nice to score a match winning goal or to help the team get over the line with a win.
“But it’s just a case of working hard on the training pitch for me every day now and making sure that when the time comes that I am ready to step in and play.”
So is Saturday too soon?
“To be honest I will see how this week goes,” he said.
